The Doctor, the Dino, and the Decepticon
Absolution - Laboratories The science sector of the Absolution is a sterile, cold space in which all manner of technomacabre experiments occur behind sealed doors. Thick, clear walls quarantine necessary areas, bridged by corridors with lit walkways. Unless the holoscreens are up, anyone walking through the area can see into any of the lab spaces -- some might prove utterly boring, and some might contain sights that cannot be unseen. The workspaces are largely soundproofed, rendering the walkways almost eerily quiet, save for the footsteps of others and the occasional hisses of doors. Contents: Hook Slugfest Windshear Slugfest wanders into the lab. His back-plates are making a funny noise. Like they're stuck or something. Hook could only take so much of the Olympics. All that senseless combat, dealing with the Autobots as equals, it was okay for a while, but eventually, it began to grate on his circuits. Soon he felt compelled to return to his work. And so he took the space bridge, a beautiful invention, allowing him to all but be in multiple places at once. He seems to be working on a desk, where there is a glowing ball of energy. He's using intrsuments that few can operate, let alone with the skill and precision of Hook. All his concentration and his focus is on his work. So it comes as quite a shock when Slugfest, of all Decepticons, wanders in. "What are you doing here?" He asks rather accusingly, and then after a moment, he notices that his plates seem to have fused together, "Medical Bay is the third door on the right." Well, for Hook, that's downright pleasant. "No medics in there," Slugfest says, "Need medic. Something no working right." He tries revving his chainsaw blades and they barely move, while making a screeching protesting sound. Windshear thinks the olympics are stupid and left them with good riddence. He has no idea why he was even there to begin with but whatever. Hes ended up in the shipt for whatever reason and walking down the hall hears a weird noise. He pauses at the doorway and looks at Slugfest, "What happened to you?" he rasps hoarsly. Hook knocks his head to the side, and as much as it pains him, he sets his tools down. His great work will have to wait. He is about three months in, it can take a few minutes more. "Fine, very well." He gets up from his chair, then returns it to its proper place. Even the tools he set down were set done in their correct order, with perfect spacing. He is nothing if not meticulous. He steps up to a table, and presses a button. The table descends, slowly, to the floor. It's clear by his body language that the cassette is meant to walk onto the platform area, though he doesn't say anything. Slugfest wanders over to the lowering platform and scrambles onto it. He looks over at Windshear. "No know. Maybe someone jam something in?" Or maybe he ran out of lubricant. Windshear watches the little dino get on the table. Hook waits for Slugfest to get in the centre, and when he doesn't move to the correct spot as Hook desires, he states, "A little forward, a little forward, back a bit," and gives directions until he is where Hook wants him. He then raises the platform, creating a table for himself. He retracts a hand, and a laser scalpel emerges from it, which he uses on one of the armour plates below the kite-shaped ones on Slugfest's back. "Windshear, out or in? This is sterile environment, and as long as you hold that door open, it will continue to tax the system as it tries to sterilise the hallway and the connecting ship." Slugfest slowly maneuvers himself into position at Hook's direction. He stops vibrating his chainsaw-plates so that Hook can poke around and determine the problem. "Him no want heat the outside," he says to Windshear. Windshear shrugs and steps inside and hears the door close behind him. He slowly approaches and just watches what Hook is doing to sluggy. He does study repair when he can. As Hook listens to Slugfest speak, he notes the narrow vocabulary and turns briefly to what he had been working on earlier. He is quite a far way off from completion, but for a brief moment he considers replacing Slugfest's laser core with his own creation. Soundwave would probably frown on that . It is probably best to leave 'Lord Soundwave's creation alone. Besides, he could design a much better body for his vastly superior laser core. There are two things that can be said about Hook's repair jobs. They occur far slower than any other medic, and they last far longer as well. He removes a piece, nothing vital, but it removed, and he takes it apart, tinkering with it. It actually has nothing to do with the chainsaw action, but it looked like it could use some work on it, and while Hook had Slugfest open, he was going to do the repair to the best of his not inconsiderable ability. "That is correct, Slugfest. I do not want to heat the outside of this room. Nor do I want to sterilise any other section of this ship. It would be not be an appropriate use of energon. I am forced to work under a budget." It's clear that he's not too happy about it, "Sometimes I miss Megatron. At least he appreciated my work." Windshear raises an optic ridge, "Lord Megatron.." he rumbles, "If he were still alive you ben be sure we would not be how we are now..." Slugfest sits quietly, as Soundwave has trained him to do during repairs. He has no idea that Hook is currently tinkering with something completely unrelated to his chainsaw. "Me no know Megatron. He was good leader?" Windshear chuckles, "Nothing there really interests me, Hook. I did get roped into a couple of things, watched a couple of other things... not worth my time." "Olympics fun, but no anything to do today," Slugfest says, "Then plates go grindy, so need have looked at. No can saw up in free for all wif plates that no work." In about as annoyingly regal a tone as he can muster, Primus, he must get up early to think this sort of thing up, he corrects Slugfest, "The Olympics are fun, but there is not anything worth doing today. Then my plates began to grind, so I needed to have them looked at. I cannot utilise my saw in a free-for-all with malfunctioning plates." Yeah, Slugfest is going to learn, he'll begin to talk like an intelligent Decepticon, and Autobots will fly. "I intend to return. Scrapper indicated that there will be a Combiner Team Demonstration Event and we intent to win it. Otherwise, without orders, I would not be caught deactivated there. Although I did convince Beastbox to climb Fortress Maximus. The fool allowed it. No doubt Beastbox has collected all manner of information on Fortress Maximus weak points." Windshear smirks and folds his arms, watching Hook work. "Order or no -- I frankly dont feel like getting detroyed all in the name of nothing so Im not bothering." "But it no really getting hurt," Slugfest says to Windshear, "Go to tent and be good as new! It magic tent." He looks up at Hook as if the Constructicon is speaking a foreign language. "Me said that," he says. Hook has by now taken one of Slugfest’s legs off, and is working on a joint inside. Even Slugfest should be pretty sure that it has nothing to do with his chainsaw action. But does he know that Hook would never do anything that wasn’t good for him? “A magic tent you? And I suppose all the engineers, repaircons, and staff there have nothing to do with it? I’ve worked in that tent before. Repairing Autobots. How ghastly.” Yep, that was one aweful Olympics. “The only benefit was that for every Autobot I treated, I knew there was a victorious Decepticon. It was small comfort.” Slugfest is now a 3-legged dino-tape. "Why take off leg?" he wonders. Oh he's sure it doesn't have anything to do with his malfunctioning chainsaw-back, but hey, Hook's the doctor, and always trust the doctor, right? "It brokened?" Windshear shakes his head, at slugfest's words about the magic tent but says nothing. Someone must have slipped sluggy some roofies when he got to the tent. ”Broken?” he repeats, as if he’s startled by the comment. “Perhaps,” he offers, and then adds, “I’m not completely sure it was ever installed correctly.” He is quite a critique, even of the work of his ‘superiors’, in rank he silently adds as a thought. He leaves the leg unattached, and now seems to remove a plate, from the inside. Rather than take it out from the top, as might be the obvious choice, he’s taken half of Slugfest’s rear assembly and left it on the operating table, he now removes a plate, and works on it. Sparks begin to fly as he uses some kind of a laser torch on it. Slugfest is now lying on his side due to the removed leg, and the stegosaur-tape can't get up under his own power when he's like this. So he just continues to lay there. "You put it back right way then?" he wonders. “Of course I will, Slugfest.” Another medic might have asked Windshear to assist, to hand him tools, but not Hook. No one else is as qualified to do it, even handing a scalpel, or a wrench, as Hook considers himself. And why delegate to a lesser being if a superior one can do it. This is repairing, not manual labour. It is a highly skilled discipline, not meant for rank amateurs. He seems to have fixed the plate, and repeats the process with another, and then another, but no more. Only three plates required that work, and nine out of ten medics would have only repaired one, but Hook has always been the tenth, last, and best medic. “At least you remain still. There’s something to be said for that.” He reinstalls those plates, carefully and delicately, then reattaches the leg, and more parts go back in. When it’s all said and done, there won’t be a single spare part left. They all went back into their correct place, or were replaced by a fresh part. Slugfest might believe he’s done and can get up now, but Hook’s not done yet, he hasn’t given Slugfest his new paint job yet. Hook is after all, nothing if not a perfectionist. He walks over to a cupboard, and begins pulling out several canisters and what looks like a spray gun of some sort. Windshear just watches quietly. "Ooooh new paint," Slugfest says, "Will feel better now." He almost wiggles, but then remembers he has to keep still for Hook to do his job. “You are awefully quiet today Windshear.” Then he notices Slugfest’s tiny bit of movement from the tail. Hook twitches, was that a glitch, or something else. “If you are going to be in my laboratory, I am going to put you to work. Finish his paint job. And if you don’t know how, today is as good a day to learn as any.” Hook turns, and begins to head back to his project, leaving Slugfest in Windshear’s capable hands. Perhaps the Constructicon just doesn’t want to paint a moving object. That won’t do at all. If Slugfest moves, even a micron, it could result in an imperfect, sloppy job. And Hook won’t have anyone saying his work was sloppy. Slugfest just stays still now. He doesn't want a sloppy paint job either. He doesn't even move his mouth now. Hook thinks to himself, at last peace and quiet. Windshear shrugs and takes the paint equipment, "So I am." he says and starts to paint Slugfest. Hook resumes work on the laser core that he has been constructing for some months now, but sadly, he finds that he has trouble concentrating. He was in the mood to work on it before the interruption, but now all he can think about is how there will likely be paint all over his laboratory to clean up, and primus knows Slugfest will begin walkins about before the paint has had enough time to dry. It has to be one of Murphoid’s laws. Slugfest is now getting painted by Windshear. He hopes that it's a good job. He feels the paint slightly firming up on his armor, and keeps holding still. He keeps telling himself he mustn't move. Windshear is being careful and working with an optic for detail on the cassettecon. And after awhile he turns off the paint gun and steps back. "Ok you are done. Dont move around for a while, Sluggy. It has to harden up and set." and he takes the paint gun over to a cleaning sink and starts to break it down to clean it. Hook stands up, and looks quizzically at Slugfest and Windshear. “Do you see anything wrong here, Windshear?” He asks, plainly and clearly. He gives a moment for a response, but hardly enough to think too deeply on the subject matter. “Why is Slugfest grey and pink? He looks more like that Dinobot Snarl than his usual . . . average self.” Some might have said handsome self, but Hook couldn’t bring his vocal synthesisers to say it. Then he thinks for a moment, “I wonder if Soundwave would notice?” Windshear looks back at Hook and then to Slugfest. "I painted him what was loaded into the gun, Hook." he says quietly. "Eh?" Slugfest wonders, "Me purple, not pink..." Upon hearing that his paint job is going to be fixed, Slugfest sighs. "Okay," he says, still lying motionless. He's got nothing better to do anyway. Windshear nods and once the gun is cleaned out he goes to the pain cabinet and sorts through the paint till he finds the ones Hook called out. Then loading them up into the gun he walks back to Slugfest, "Paint, round two." he says and starts painting the cassettecon again. Hook supervises this paint job, directing the amount of pressure, the angle. It really does complicate and slow matters down. Maybe he should have just let Windshear do it himself. It would have been better for poor Slugfest, who has to stay there motionless, but at least he'll look like new, and as handsome as he ever does, which is to say not. Who designed all these bestial alternate modes anyway? And what kind of a disguise is it? Windshear follows Hooks orders quietly and as instructed, working on painting Slugfest to look good as new. Slugfest has no idea what sort of 'disguise' a robot stegosaurus is. But then of course, isn't it the cassette-mode that's supposed to be the 'disguise'? Of course Windshear does not measure up to Hook’s standards, but he makes a decent attempt. It goes on for quite a while longer, and when it is done, Hook looks at Slugfest, as if trying to find fault. He checks all the lines, measures thickness of the paint, and waits for it to set. Finally, he states, “You can move now Slugfest. Your chainsaw action is performing to optimal standards, you have a new and improved right side circuitry system, re-aligned hind leg, and a new paint job. Now, what was it that I could do for you, Windshear?” "Yay!" Slugfeset says. He tries moving but he's still on his side, so he ends up turning a complete horizontal circle. "Um, help?" he asks. Windshear steps back and waits for the final word of approval from the Constructicon before he goes and cleans up the equipment. When Hoook cinnents to Slugfest he takes that as an 'ok' and turns to head to the sink when Hook asks his question. "Nothing." Windy says." I was just walking by at the right time I guess." he says as he starts clening the paint gun. Hook walks over, aligning himself, and places a hand, applying a set amount of pressure, pushing Slugfest up onto his feet. He then moves back, and lowers the platform, allowing the cassette to leave. He expects him to do so, as well as the Air Warrior just as soon as that gun has been properly cleaned. He does have work to do after all. "Thanks!" Slugfest says, as he toddles off. It's recharge time and the little stegosaur-con needs his sleep. Windshear finishes cleaning the paintgun and puts it back where it belongs then with a nod to Hook heads out of the repair bay.